German Published Patent Application No. 198 04 463 describes a fuel injection system for an internal combustion engine having spark ignition of a compressed fuel-air mixture, comprising a fuel injector which injects fuel into a combustion chamber formed by a piston/cylinder construction, and equipped with a spark plug projecting into the combustion chamber. The fuel injector is equipped with at least one row of injection holes distributed around the circumference of the fuel injector. Through controlled injection of fuel through the injection holes, a jet-guided combustion is implemented by forming a cloud of the mixture using at least one jet.
One disadvantage of the fuel injector known from the publication cited above is in particular the coking of the spray discharge orifices, which therefore become clogged and reduce the flow through the fuel injector to an unacceptable extent. This results in malfunctioning of the internal combustion engine.